RCD traces conflict to Kazini

The Vice-President and overall military commander of the RCD, Jean-Pierre Ondekane, has alleged that the conflict between former allies Uganda and Rwanda stemmed from the arrival in Kisangani, eastern DRC, in 1998 of Ugandan Chief of Staff Brigadier James Kazini. “It started with one thing: General Kazini accused the Rwandese of having killed one famous Congolese doctor working in Kisangani,” Ondekane told the independent Ugandan ‘Monitor’ newspaper. It was subsequently established that the doctor was safe at home, but that was the start of Kazini’s “campaign” against Rwanda, Ondekane said. Another cause of the conflict was Uganda’s “creation” of Jean-Pierre Bemba’s MLC rebel force, despite Ugandan President Yoweri Museveni having promised the RCD that he would never support two separate movements in Congo, he told the ‘Monitor’. [Uganda also backs the RCD-ML (Mouvement de liberation), led by Ernest Wamba dia Wamba.] Museveni said he was using Bemba “only for mobilisation and intelligence purposes. We did not know then that Museveni was lying to us all the time,” Ondekane said. However, the RCD was still thankful for Museveni’s earlier support, he added. “We are really grateful to him, even if things have turned sour. You don’t forget the good things one has done to you even if he later turns out to be bad to you.”